When former House Leader Tom DeLay characterized his conspiracy charge as “one of the weakest and most baseless indictments in American history,” District Attorney Ronnie Earle was listening attentively. As a result, two new indictments have been handed down, including one for money laundering. If convicted on all three counts, Tommy Boy could spend the rest of his years behind bars, where his identity as “The Hammer” will no doubt fade under the weight of makeshift tattoos and repeated anal bleaching. Meanwhile, DeLay’s golfing buddy, Jack Abramoff, may soon be implicated in a Fort Lauderdale gangland-style slaying. The victim, Gus Boulis, had sold a gaming business to Abramoff and a long-time partner who later wrote $240,000 worth of checks to two of the assailants. While the defense claims these payments were for “catering services,” it is unlikely that a pre-trial plea will truncate the story because Boulis was sprayed with bullets before Florida’s “shoot first” gun law went into effect.

The administration’s procurement chief, David Safavian, was also taken into custody this week. Authorities arrested Safavian at his Alexandria home where he is rumored to have stashed $8.5 billion in missing Iraqi reconstruction funds. Concurrently, Times reporter Judith Miller was getting out of jail after giving herself permission to testify in the Valerie Plame case. Backed by mounting evidence, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is reportedly mulling a move against White House puppet master Karl Rove and Cheney’s other bitch, Scooter Libby.

It’s pucker time in Washington, and in the wake of Katrina and Rita, the Capital remains on high alert; sophisticated early warning systems are now predicting a shit storm of Biblical proportions. Skittish Republicans are already bailing out. Congressional candidate Marilyn Bowers, seeking a vacated California seat, declared, “I stand side by side with Ronald Reagan on less taxes and less government.” Hell, why stop at Reagan, why not dredge up Dwight Eisenhower or James Madison? Notably, not only did Bowers distance herself from Bush fils, she avoided Bush pere as well. As for Junior, his drooling, Mongoloid countenance simply cannot belie his terror – he knows what’s coming and it shows. Amidst the night sweats and searing bouts of irritable bowel syndrome, the President fashioned a crude and flagrant scheme to protect himself; he would elevate his personal attorney to the Supreme Court.

Conservatives are aghast at the nomination of Harriet Miers, ostensibly because of her dearth of experience and her advocacy of full civil rights for gays and lesbians. During her tenure on the Dallas city council, she said the municipality should pay for AIDS education and patient services. The whisper circuit (as in the case of Chief Justice Roberts) is painting Harry as a closet homo – never married, no kids and, well, just look at her. I’ll admit that the butch hairdo (Janet Reno, Eleanor Roosevelt) and invisible upper lip (Melissa Etheridge, Jody Foster) compose a rather Sapphic portrait, but Liberals shouldn’t rejoice just yet.

Miers opposed repealing a Texas statue, since overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, which outlawed sodomy. Her former campaign manager, Lorlee Bartos, describes her as being “on the extreme end of the anti-choice movement,” an assessment corroborated by Miers’s donation to the Texans for Life Coalition. The notion that a lesbian on the Supreme Court could be inimical to freedoms enjoyed by gays or women is not without precedent: Why, who hates black people more than Clarence Thomas? Well, maybe Bill Bennett. Mr. Virtue is under broad attack for racist comments made during his radio show: “But I do know that it’s true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could — if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down.” But that wasn’t the worst of it. During the same broadcast Bennett picked the Patriots to cover at home and predicted Woke Up Dreamin’ would capture the Vosburg Stakes at Belmont. As the weekend drew to a close, Bennett’s bookie, Willie Jefferson, vowed to “double the vig on that honkey mother-fucker.”